Page 1734 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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CONSERVATION, HERITAGE AND ENVIRONMENT -
STANDING COMMITTEE
Report on Smoke-free Areas (Enclosed Public Places) Bill 1993
MR MOORE (11.01): Pursuant to order, I present the report of the Standing Committee on Conservation, Heritage and Environment on the Smoke-free Areas (Enclosed Public Places) Bill 1993, entitled Clearing the Air, together with a dissenting report and extracts from the minutes of proceedings. I move:
That the report be noted.
Mr Deputy Speaker, simple solutions can be effective. Simplistic ones do not work. This piece of legislation was passed in principle by this Assembly. Therefore, the role of the Conservation, Heritage and Environment Committee was to follow the in-principle concept of improving public health and ensuring a minimisation of harm associated with passive smoking. That is what we attempted to do, and I believe that that is what we have achieved.
At the outset I would like to emphasise the goodwill on the part of all members of the committee. I would like to emphasise the work the members of the committee did to try to ensure the best possible report. I acknowledge the dissenting report of Ms Ellis, and I also would like to thank her for the incredible effort that she made to ensure the best possible report, even to the extent of assisting with the parts that she disagreed with. I think that says a great deal about her willingness to participate and to try to come to a sensible and rational conclusion. I would like to thank Mr Westende for his participation and enthusiasm. While I am in the thanking area, Mr Deputy Speaker, I also would like to thank the secretary of the committee, Mr Richard Cavanagh, who often worked long hours doing tedious work. He had a particularly difficult job, like all of us, in trying to discern, through the evidence, what was true, what was false, what was exaggerated and what was reasonable. A great deal of evidence fitted those categories. I also thank those who appeared before our committee. I note that in the chamber today there are members of the ACT Alcohol and Drug Service, as well as members of ASH, the Australian Hotels Association and the public who spent a great deal of time and effort to ensure that the committee was well informed.
I would like, first of all, Mr Deputy Speaker, to deal with the factors that influenced me most. The most important of those was the false evidence and the false impression that was given to the committee. The first of those was the impression that there had been similar smoke-free legislation enacted elsewhere right around the world. That simply is not the case. Legislation that has been enacted elsewhere around the world fits in with the sort of experience that we had when we were in New Zealand. The smoke-free legislation enacted in New Zealand provides for a 50 per cent smoke-free area in restaurants. It goes further than that; but, largely, that is the impact of that legislation. Similarly, in the United States, that is the general way that supposedly smoke-free legislation has been enacted. There are places that have gone further than that, but the vast majority fit into that category. Mr Deputy Speaker, the recommendations that we have made go well beyond that, and go well beyond the areas that the original Wayne Berry legislation was prepared to grapple with.
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